Gǔjīn yīàn àn xuǎn 古今醫案按選
Selected Critical Commentary on Ancient and Modern Medical Cases selected by 王士雄 Wáng Shìxióng (Mèngyīng 孟英, 1808–1868), of Hǎiníng / Hángzhōu.
About the work
A four-juǎn abbreviated and re-annotated selection from 俞震 Yú Zhèn’s KR3ep071 Gǔjīn yīàn àn (1778), prepared in 1853 by the leading late-Qīng wēnbìng master Wáng Shìxióng (Wáng Mèngyīng). Wáng kept “the best” 尤善者 of Yú Zhèn’s cases and added his own ànyǔ alongside Yú’s, producing a stratified commentary in which two of the great Qīng critical anthologists comment on the same case material.
Prefaces
The _000.txt carries two prefaces by Wáng Shìxióng:
- The first, dated Xiánfēng 3 guǐchǒu chángzhì rì (winter-solstice day, 1853), signed Ānhuà hòurén Wáng Shìxióng shū yú Qiánzhāi 安化後人王士雄書於潛齋, recalls how the Qiánlóng-period anthologist 魏之琇 Wèi Liǔzhōu had selected sixty juǎn of Xù lèiàn before his death; how 楊素園 Yáng Sùyuán (a Dìngzhōu prefect) had once asked Wáng to edit it for publication. In spring 1853 Wáng was sent a copy of Yú Zhèn’s Gǔjīn yīàn àn by his colleague 呂慎庵 Lǚ Shènān via the nephew-in-law 鮑蕙谷 Bào Huìgǔ, and “after reading it through four times” he undertook the present selection.
- The second, dated Dīngsì làbā rì (1857, eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, Làbā festival), signed Tíngxī Guīyàn cǎotáng 渟溪歸硯草堂, describes the subsequent textual transmission: Yáng Sùyuán had carried the manuscript to Nánchāng but the Tàipíng disturbances in Jiāngxī prevented its printing; thanks to 徐亞枝 Xú Yàzhī a fair-copy was preserved, but only with the gist of each case abridged. 胡次瑤 Hú Cìyáo then proposed that the original cases be restored in full; through Lǚ Shènān’s mediation a complete copy was located in the possession of 吳云峰 Wú Yúnfēng of Jiāshàn 嘉善, and the full text was duly restored.
Abstract
The text exists as a stratified Qīng critical anthology: Yú Zhèn’s selections + Yú’s commentary + Wáng Mèngyīng’s selections + Wáng’s commentary on each retained case. The methodological pattern is significant — Wáng’s ànyǔ often dispute or modify Yú’s, providing the late-Qīng wēnbìng school’s reading of cases that Yú had read through the lens of mid-Qiánlóng Sūzhōu-school syntheticism. The two annotators thus disagree productively across a century of medical doctrine, making the text an unusually rich didactic resource.
The composition window 1853–1857 reflects the gap between Wáng’s first preface (1853) and the textual-recovery second preface (1857). The work is doctrinally derivative of KR3ep071 but stands as a major independent Wáng Mèngyīng work and is the principal example of his anthologising methodology.
Translations and research
Hinrichs and Barnes 2013, pp. 199–202, 224.